If you’re good enough to be a main-rotation player in any professional team sport, you might arrive at one of the most defining intersections of your life: the place where personal aspiration and personal security cross paths.
It’s true that pro athletes make a heckuva lotta money compared to the rest of us, but given the risks involved in playing professional sports — you never know when or if an ACL tear could sabotage a career, just like that — the need to secure a huge payday is not something to be casually dismissed. Athletes spend their lives training and practicing to become good enough to earn the kind of money that’s being given to them in this period of NBA free agency.
Older players — those in their mid-30s who secured that mammoth contract several years earlier — can be more liberated in pursuing a championship if the window opens for them. For players whose identities have not yet been established, or whose careers have many years left, the choice between payday and championship is a much more difficult one.
Very simply, Danny Green of the San Antonio Spurs — by inking a four-year, $45 million deal with the team — has chosen the opportunity to win more titles over the larger payday he might have been able to secure with the Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, or other possible suitors. There’s powerful — and recent — precedent to suggest that Green made the right choice. Yet, with that choice comes a moment in which Green’s career will be shaped, for better or worse.
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It seems very hard to deny the notion that the Spurs are assembling a roster which will put them in very good position to contend for the 2016 NBA title. With that having been said, it has to be acknowledged that as great as that first-round series with the Los Angeles Clippers turned out to be — no NBA playoff series was better in 2015 — the Spurs fell flat in two separate moments when past versions would have delivered the hammer. In Games 4 and 6 of that series, the Spurs had a chance to either take a commanding 3-1 lead or finish off the series. Twice, they whiffed, and what’s more is that their worse performance came in Game 6.
One of several players who failed to lift his game in both contests was Danny Green, who struggled with his jumper throughout the series until Game 7. In Game 7, Green was strong on offense and spectacular on defense. He showcased every skill in his toolbox, reminding the Spurs how essential a piece he was for the team in its previous journeys to the NBA Finals. Yet, with Tim Duncan being older and Tony Parker clearly being slowed down by injury, if you wanted to pinpoint a Spur who really should have been a lot better in the Clippers series, you could have made (and could still make) a strong case that Green was No. 1 on the list.
This brings a fascinating tension point to the coming NBA season, one which lies at the heart of how Danny Green will write his story as a professional basketball player.
It’s true that Green agreed to a relative discount in San Antonio. This deal gives the Spurs the flexibility they need to assemble a complete roster, chiefly by bringing in LaMarcus Aldridge. In this sense, Green is being a team player, something which helps a reputation in the locker room. However, the reputation up for discussion here is Green’s legacy as a player.
In the 2013 and 2014 NBA Finals, Green was one of the best Spurs on the floor against the Miami Heat. In 2013, he was in fact the best Spur — he would have deserved the Finals MVP award had San Antonio closed out that series in six games. This past season, however, Green clearly regressed, and with the Spurs staring at the end of the Duncan-Parker-Manu Ginobili era in the not-too-distant future, this four-year deal means that Green has committed to help carry the Spurs into their new era, the one with Kawhi Leonard safely in the fold and Aldridge hopefully on board.
It’s true that signing a large deal for a lesser NBA team confers its own substantial amount of pressure upon a player. The need to justify a hefty contract is tethered to an athlete’s relationship with his specific fan base, his local media community, and the larger sports league in which he competes. Those are all powerful forms of pressure, and since bigger money is generally connected to a greater set of personal responsibilities, one can make the perfectly reasonable and logical claim that bigger money represents the most profound source of pressure for top professional athletes.
However, any athlete who takes the other path — pursuing championships more than the dollar sign or the central role on a team — brings just as much pressure upon himself, if not more.
The player who pursues titles is a player who eschews the ability to post big numbers for a bad team. There’s security in that: Post your stats. Receive little blame for what goes on with your team. Put in your work with your head down. Don’t complain. Get the very large paycheck that will give you and your family long-term security. First comes the pressure to deliver, and ideally, to lift up a bad team to a higher place. However, if a player performs well but just doesn’t have a lot of support around him, he can proceed safely through his career. There might not be championships at the end of the journey, but the personal reputation won’t suffer, and the bank account will be supremely fat.
Many players have traveled this route, and will live a perfectly comfortable life as a result. There’s a lot to be admired — and desired — in that path.
Danny Green chose differently, and in this respect, he’s following the path carved out by another player who just became what Green almost became in 2013: NBA Finals MVP.
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Andre Iguodala in Denver and Philadelphia could reasonably be regarded as a cautionary tale for Danny Green had he chosen to sign with Detroit for a lot more money than he’ll take home with the Spurs. Iguodala, when wanting a more central role on a team and craving a larger set of responsibilities, did not become everything NBA executives and coaches thought he could be. It wasn’t until Iguodala blended into the Golden State Warriors’ roster — as a player expected to contribute, but not become “the guy” or even one of the top three options at the offensive end — that he blossomed into his best NBA self.
Everything you saw in Iguodala’s game — the clutch perimeter shooting as a catch-and-shoot guy, the relentless defense against LeBron James, the ability to cover so much of the floor — spilled out in full flower in the NBA Finals. Iguodala also gave Golden State a lift in Game 4 against Memphis, when the Warriors faced one of their two supreme moments of truth in the playoffs. Being a complementary player, not a primary player, put Iguodala in position to succeed. He was a veteran presence on a young team. He lent wisdom to a roster whose starting five had never made a previous appearance in an NBA Finals series.
With San Antonio, the difference for Danny Green is that he has agreed to return to a team with Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, a team that doesn’t just expect championships, but wants to give its old anchors the ride into the sunset they want. Green might have the freedom afforded by not having to be a top-three player on his roster, but after the 2015 playoffs, he’s bought into the notion that if he can’t be a part of a championship club, something about his career will be diminished.
Green might be seeking the Andre Iguodala path, the one that almost certainly fits his skill set and demeanor. Now, though, in another go-round with the Spurs, Green has upped the ante for himself. It’s championship-or-bust not just for San Antonio, but for the role player who needs to play his role a lot better in 2016.
